


Dustvengers: The Fix It

by Jonaira



Category: Avengers infinity war part 1, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Post-Credits Scene, Comfort No Hurt, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone is Dead, Feelings, Fix-It, Fluff and Crack, Gen, How Do I Tag, Humor, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity Gems, Manpain, Meta, Metafiction, Post-Avengers Shawarma Scene, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Rants, Ridiculous, Sassy Bucky Barnes, Women Being Awesome, Yay !, You're Welcome, but then, wtf marvel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 15:10:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14547450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonaira/pseuds/Jonaira
Summary: Spoilers for Avengers Infinity War.Because what Marvel did is not OK.Presenting, The Avengers: What really happened.





	Dustvengers: The Fix It

Tony has had his heart ripped out of his chest, been thrown out of his own house, through his _own_ window _thankyouverymuch_ , been dropped through a worm hole from outer space and most recently, had the exquisite pleasure of knowing what it feels like to be a high-tech shish-kebab (he’s sticking to shawarma from now on, thanks) and yet, nothing quite compares to what his _Feelings_ ™ are feeling right now as he looks at the colourful pile of dust that used to be his spider kid. A little ways over, the piles of dust that used to be Drax, Mantis, Quill and Strange stir quietly on the dirt of Titan, little puffs of erstwhile beings.

“Ooh, Mr. Stark Sir, That cannot be good for your heart rate. Deep breaths sir, just like in yoga class.”

Tony looked down. The raspy, dusty sort of voice seemed to be coming from the front pockets of his running jacket.

It rambled on, “That is, not to say, that I’m spying on you or anything, its just that it seemed like something Ms. Potts would get you to go to, you know, for health and a shared couple activity, speaking of which by the way, did you receive my aunt’s thank you card for the invitation to the wedding ? Because even zumba would be pretty great, you know, I do it myself all the time-”

“Pilates,” Tony interrupts loudly.

“Oh man I wasn’t supposed to tell you that- What?”

“Its Pilates, not yoga, and god no, not zumba, ever. That’s more Happy’s schtick. Say, kid, why is your voice in my pocket ?”

“Because it’s quite roomy in here actually, and a bit of me had fallen into your jacket  while we had our mentor-mentee moment before I went poof, and -”

Tony looks around him, and realises that the gently stirring piles of Drax, Mantis, Quill and Strange should not have been stirring at all, because there wasn’t a breath of wind on this entire planet.

“How is this possible, how are you folk still sentient ? Was Jesus really onto something with the whole _Dust unto Dust_  line ?”

“Do you believe in magic?” asked the Dr. Strange pile of dust.

“I’m even more invisible now !” rasped the Drax pile happily.

“Will power,” cooed the Mantis pile.

“An undying booty-call complex ?” wheezed the Quill pile.

“Daddy issues” growled Nebula.

 “Hold on. You aren’t even dust,” said Tony.

“Doesn’t matter, still counts”. She cracked her knuckles.

“Hey,” piped up Peter, “if _you’d_ got vaporized instead of the flying cape who everyone loves despite zero speaking lines, it would have been the best pun ever since you know, a nebula is actually a cosmic collection of star dust, where they form and stuff -” Tony’s pocket buzzed excitedly until Tony cut him off, “What about you kid ?”

“Uh, I’m Batman ?”

Tony tsk-ed impatiently. “Kid you can’t be Batman. Don’t mix up your  arachnids and mammals, Kingdoms, Phylum and Universes. The parental lock I set up allows Animal Planet, the American education system I swear,”

“Oh,” Tony’s pocket said in a small voice.”I thought it was because there can only be one genius billion playboy philanthropist at a time on screen.”

Tony blinked. “Er, that too. That’s actually pretty good...” he trailed off.

The Stephen Strange pile of dust  made an indignant noise.

Everyone is silent for a comedically appropriate and well timed moment. Then –

“So, uh, does anybody have any idea how to get off this planet and get back to Missouri ?” asked the Peter Quill pile of dust.

“This is all your fault anyway Peter, you numbskull,” snarled nebula.

“Excuse me ! I was expressing my emotions!” “Hey, what did I do?!” exclaimed both Peter piles of dust.

“Wrong Peter,” Mantis told Parker kindly. Peter Parker whimpered from Tony’s pocket when she addressed him.

“There is a time and place, Fartlord ! Man pain is only manly _after_ the heroes win the battle ! Before that it’s just a pain in everyone’s ass !” snarked Tony.

“Language,“ interrupted Strange loudly.

“Wrong Steven,” said Tony impatiently. “And anyway, you Brits aren’t edgy enough. On the other side of the pond we’ve had a long history of allowing minors into gunfights and even into World War 2 as sidekicks, so what’s a little language here and there.”

“What’s wrong with the Brits ?” Asked Peter Parker sounding hurt.

“The idiot has a point though, how are we getting back to earth ?” asked Drax .

“And here I thought you were on my team,” grouched Quill.

Nebula started to say, “We still have my ship that I still possessing opposable thumbs could fly-” when she was cut off by Spider-Minor, who went, “hey guys, do you know that really, _really_ old movie with the pirate with the hook hand and the fairies with the flying dust which they’d sprinkle upon people  and then the big ship at the end, the _Gay Steve,_ no, _Jolly Roger,_ so that they can get high (up in the sky) and then get home ?! ”

Tony wearily scrubbed a hand across his brow. “We really have enough Peters already.”

Mantis quietly muttered, “And Toms. And Chrises. And Stev/ph/ens. But who’s listening to me. I just lay eggs apparently.”

_***_

The sad remains of the Avengers, the original bunch in fact, looked around the trees in varying states of disbelief and shock. The piles of their fallen comrades lay scattered around them.

One of the piles looked decidedly grouchier than the others.

“I didn’t cancel my Thai foot massage for this.” It groused.

“Buck ? Is that you ?” Steve blinked hard.

“Yeah, of course it’s me. How many other 100 year old piles of dirt do you know with hair as swish as this? They don’t call me Bucky with the great hair for nothing and let me tell you, it doesn’t come by cancelling spa days, or scheduled appointments with Shur’i’s hair dresser.”

“But how is this even possible ?!” an increasingly befuddled Steve asked.

“Steve, you just introduced yourself to THE Talking Tree. This by far isn’t the most unbelievable thing that you’ve seen.”

“But Bucky, where are you talking from?”

“Steve, they really aren’t paying me enough to answer that, alright, not even a 9-picture deal would be able to cover it.You really need to ask the right questions, like when will they stop with the macho-hetronormative-bromance angle for the pair of us that they’re running with and just let us have the equation that they’ve spent all the last 3 Cap movies building.”  As a pile of dust, he apparently didn’t have to stop to catch his breath.

 Bucky took pity on Steve. “ Just roll with it, yeah ?” he said kindly.

“Ok,” nodded Steve weakly.

“Now, I didn’t come out of my early retirement for this. And I’d really like my retirement hut back. Had just finished installing the singing fountain, and I’m not going to be a happy centenarian if that that butt-chinned Thanos breaks it.”

“Wait, you know where Thanos is ?”

The pile of dust that claimed to be Bucky gave him a duh look with no facial features. Some people had all the superpowers.

“How do you know where Thanos is ?” Asked Blonde Widow.

“Uh, because my home security system just sent me a notification about an unauthorised entry ? Jeez, where do you think I live ? Alone in the wilderness like a once formidable, now broken recluse of a man bestowed with an appropriately mystic and powerful yet symbolic name like White Wolf ?”

The non-dustified heroes shared a look. “Never mind, thanks Buck.”

“Wait a minute. Why is Bucky the dust pile getting all the good lines right now ?” asked Thor.

“Because they didn’t give him enough screen time earlier !” snapped everyone and their Nana.

Thor gulped.

Rocket had been trying to edge towards Bucky’s assault rifle and pick it up while Thor had his diva moment. The Bucky pile of dust hissed at Rocket.  Rocket backed off hurriedly before stopping and realising he’d felt threatened by a pile of dust and reached out for the gun again.

“I will make you sneeze, panda.”

“Now now, play nice”, the Falcon pile of dust said placatingly. “Save the friendly ribbing for the press tour, yeah, the fans go nuts for it.”

“I am Groot.”

“What ? thats a horrible idea” “Yes, sure I’ll TiVo the next episode of Keeping Up with the Kadarshian’s for you.” Rocket and Thor spoke simultaneously.

“What did the giving tree say ?” Okoye questioned testily.

“What did _you_ think he said ?” Rocket eyed Thor suspiciously.

“Er, never mind.”

“Didn’t you say you took Groot as an elective on Asgard?”

“I flunked it ?” Thor shrugged sheepishly.

“Is this like the time you claimed Loki was adopted ?” asked T’challa, sounding unimpressed.

Thor was saved from answering by an indignant,

“You said _what_  about me?”

Every single one, both Particulate and Person cheered.

Loki flipped his hair back. “I’m gone for one movie and you buffoons manage to colossally screw things up. And here I’d even brought you a present brother,” he pulled his horned helmet off his head and pulled out a crumpled up Gamora.

“Er. Who ?” asked Thor looking confused.

Loki scratched his nose. “Wrong Chris,’ he decided.  

Gamora gently collapsed to the ground.

Loki sighed through his nose. “Hold on a tick, she was in a lot better shape when I picked her up off that cliffside...” Loki muttered to himself as he made balloon animal motions over her. When he finally moved back, Gamora in all green glory stood glaring out at the bunch.

“Earth’s mightiest Heroes™,” Loki told her with a meaningful look, waving a hand out expansively at them in introduction.  Steve waved back.

“Why are you helping me ?” She asked Loki coldly.

“Because daddy issues are the lowest common denominator in this particular cinematic universe, and folks like us who hate our adopted fathers who had to adopt us in the first place because they slaughtered our parents with whom we would have had a happy and uncomplicated life anyway; folk like us gotta stick together.”

Suddenly, the Windows XP booting up tone rang though the trees.

“Vis !!” exclaimed the Wanda pile of dust, and tried to drift over to him.

The android looked happy to see her. He opened his mouth then and –“Installing Windows update.” he said. “Restart Windows normally?”

“Oh dear,’ murmured Loki.

“Your last Windows session shut down unexpectedly, you might have lost some unsaved data.” Vision told them helplessly.

“Can you fix him brother ?” Thor asked Loki pleadingly.

“Oh, so _now_ I’m _brother_ not _adopted_ brother,” Loki grumbled to himself. “I used up my quota of cool magic faking my own death again and bringing Gamora back here, I need at least a year  or until the next movie, whichever  is sooner, to recharge all the tricks up my sleeve.”

“I liked it better when I had my own movie,” Black Panther sighed. “All right children. We know where Thanos is. We know we want him gone, attempts to show him as 3 dimensional villain with complex motivations to do radical but stupid things aside. Let’s make a plan. Awesome forever ! ”

“Here here,” Steve cheered.

 “You know what was the best therapy for me ?Just being around sensible, sane people like this guy over here.” Bucky told Steve in an undertone, as he attempted to clap for T’challa with no hands, flesh or vibranium. “No really, if we didn’t have 3 prior movies of back story and history together, the stucky ao3 tag would have been smaller than Wakanda.”  “If still just as rich,” he added kindly.

 “Hey, what’s that up there ?” asked somebody pointing to a small speck on the horizon.

“Is it the Hulk ?” somebody else asked, sounding hopeful.

“Uh, nope, I’m here.” said Bruce , trying to wave his hand and then giving up when he realised he’d blasted it off earlier.

“That’s my line,” Said Loki. Thor smiled fondly at him.

The speck in the sky was growing bigger. Finally it got close enough to see that that the speck was actually a very troubled mass of Tony and Nebula, sitting on top of instead of _inside_ her ship, which was now  solid golden a la the Jolly Roger at the end of Peter Pan,  and was surrounded by a halo of dust. As they got even closer, the dust could be heard to be bickering, with itself. The dust’s bickering then resolved into five different voices. Nebula looked like she had the worst headache in the universe, which she probably did considering her eye socket had popped out of place again. Tony grinned at everyone, who gaped back at him. He cleared his throat and jumped off the roof of the space ship when they touched down, the dust falling into 5 neat piles from around the ship.

“Looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” He said with a flourish.

“I understood that reference.” said Steve wryly. Bucky and Nat wiped away fond tear. Or Nat did, Bucky  emanated a general sense of fond nostalgia. “Some things never change,” he said fondly.

“Cap.” Tony addressed him straight facedly.

Steve nodded once. “Good to have you back with us Tony.”

“Right, now if we’re all done with the happy reunions, can we go kick alien butt-chin ” Okoye started to say before she was cut off by Nebula and Gamora giving each other a huge hug.

“Hey, no hug for me?” Asked Peter Quill the dust pile forlornly.

Everyone gave him a dirty look.

                                                     ***

As it turned out, Thanos had indeed broken Bucky’s singing fountain. They found his Glove soaking in the Jacuzzi. It waved to then. They could hear Thanos singing in the Kitchen – “Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seeeeen, Nobody knows my sorrroowwsss...”

Steve put a finger to his lips, asking the Glove to be quite. It made the Ok sign.

The bunch of heroes crept in on tip toes and drifted in on air currents as dust as quietly as they could. Thor was going to wield the axe-hammer, and whack Thanos in the head this time.

Everyone’s favourite Mad Titan was baking, and crying a bit too, wearing a ‘BEST DAD’ apron. Just before Thor could jump into the kitchen with a fearsome war cry and take him out in a stealth ninja attack, Rocket pulled on his shirt.

“What is it rabbit ?” Thor asked tersely.

“You know that thing we were talking about ? Where we lose stuff ? I, personally, did lose a lot. My crew doesn’t even have one set of opposable thumbs to go around us –”

Everyone ignored Quills protest of,” Hey, I’m the captain, it's my crew!”

“-and I’m going to have to raise my teenage son _again_ , and let me tell you that he was a very light sleeper,” a chorus of shrill little “I am Groot” comes from the pot in which they’d planted the Groot dust, all the particles of which seem to be sprouting individually.

“and blah blah blah. But. As much I lost, personally, Gamora over here has lost a lot more. So methinks that she should be the one to take his head off.”

Thor looked down at Stormbreaker, and back up at Rocket. Back down at Stormbreaker and then at the Groots in their pot. The dust pile/sprouts seemed to nod reassuringly. His fingers tightened over the gracefully slender handle. Then he handed over the axe to Gamora.

T’challa cleared his non-existent throat. “While we’re getting things out in the open here, I should just mention, Cap’s flexing scene with the helicopter was better than your flexing scene while opening the iris. Oh, and his beard is better too. Just a brothers’ opinion.”  T’challa shrugged nonchalantly.

“Amen.” said Bucky. Steve blushed.

Thor  blinked and then shrugged himself. “I got my Brother back. CGI or not, this is the real thing.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, Okay. This is quite enough for one session of men talking about their feelings and expressing things that they would only do at the moment of death openly. Keep this up and there won’t be any man pain left for later plot angst,” Blonde Widow said, making the time out hand motion.

In the background, there was a muffled thud and a shriek. The oven timer dinged.

 “Ok guys, were done here.” Gamora, Nebula, Okoye, Wanda and Mantis the dust piles came out munching cookies, Gamora dragging the axe behind her. They high fived Natasha.

M’baku asked – “Wait, you’ve already killed him?”

“Yeah you boys were too busy angsting so we got it done. Nat distracted you guys so that ya’ll wouldn’t come in and make a mess of things. All in a day’s work.”

“Well that was quick,” Bruce put in mildly.

Sam and Bucky side-eyed each other, as much as they could considering they had no eyeballs. “That’s what she said,” they whispered in unision. “Hey, I got that reference too,” Steve told them quietly. His glee was understated yet palpable.

T’challa looked at M’baku. “Where were you all this tim-”

 “Hu ooh ooh hu hoo hu hoo h ooh hoo huu!”

“I am Groot !”

Tony looked around. “Say, T’challa, you wouldn’t happen to know any good Shawarma place around here would you ?”

“I would,” says Shur’i from behind the other ladies.

“When did _you_ get here ?” T’challa asked her, increasingly bewildered now.

“When you froze, brother.”

“gr- _OOOOOOOOOOOOH_ -t,” said everyone , so that even Groot could join in.

Rhodey nudged T'challa. "Bet you didn't see me there either." T'challa swore that ensemble casts just didn't work for him. Too many moving parts to keep track of.

“Wait.” said Bucky. He first reset his hut security, or so he said he was doing as he sat motionless in one spot, and then shuffled out the door and over to the Jacuzzi, careful not to settle in a wet spot .

“Thanks man,” he told the Infinity Glove that was still soaking in the hot water. “You’re welcome to stay in here as long as you want. Bath Bombs are in the holder.” 

The glove tried to high-five him and then realised the problem. So it snapped its fingers and then everyone, everywhere unvapourised and de-dusted, and reverted to normal, except Vision, who now simply looked like Paul Bettany and not his former red and yellow caped self.

Everyone shook hands with the Infinity Glove and it finally high-fived Bucky and Shur’i and Peter Parker.

“Get you a plate back ?” T’challa asked it.

The Glove gave them a thumbs up.

“So. Any ideas how we’re getting there ? Walking or Web slinging or..” trailed off Peter Parker. Too many sets of eyes slowly turned to Nebula.

 “We aren’t taking my ship.”

                                                                                                                 ***

(They took her ship.)

                                                                                                                 ***

Somewhere, on an unnamed street in an unnamed city, a lone white-haired old sweeper cleans up the non-person, regular old dust left behind on the road by the 6 million people who were suddenly de-vaporised  and had finished celebrating being de-dusted. Everyone was back home, sleeping off the dust spell and subsequent after party.

Everyone, except -

“-fucker,” said a particularly shady looking pile of dust.

The sweeper lowered his sunglasses.

“Language,” said Stan Lee.

 

                                                                                                         

 

                                                                                                           The Actual End.

 


End file.
